Let me start by saying that my wife and I are far from the most experienced Cruisers, but this cruise was our 4th in the last 2 years so we have a lot to compare it to. Previously we had traveled on Celebrity x2, and Royal Caribbean.

Since I have family in Seattle, we did the program where you can bring aboard people onto the ship for a quick tour and lunch. At first we were told that only our guests would be eating by themselves and we would not be able to join them. After a quick argument to get our cruise started we were all allowed to tour and dine together. The one benefit of this program (at a cost $39 per person) is that we were literally the FIRST guests to board the ship. The meal was rather unimpressive considering they are trying to solicit business and future cruise sales.

As for our cabin, it was in the very back of the ship actually facing outwards. Cabin number D735. We had looked up reviews for this cabin because it says "beam" obstruction. All the reviews seemed to say it was still a great cabin to be in, and my wife and I could not agree more. The beam is there, but it was hardly a big deal for us. The balcony was about 12 feet long from sliding door to glass rail and 10 feet wide from neighbor on our left to steward space on our right. The beam comes into play on the right hand side about 3 feet from the glass railing and comes out about 2 feet. There is actually about a 30 square foot space of balcony past the beam where there is no obstruction at all. There is also a speaker located right above the balcony which was not in use at all during the trip. Read more